MaybelleW, What you are describing is EXACTLY what I am currently experiencing. I am a 57 year old woman that’s been doing the IF for 2.5 years. I have lost about 70 pounds during that time. However, during the last 8 months my weight loss has slowed to a stop and I’ve even gained about 4 pounds. To my shock and horror. I thought I was OVER that kind of stuff. I still fast 2 days a week. However, I have slipped from being as diligent on my eating days. So I am sure that is what is doing it. But I have upped my walking speed and frequency. I am looking at how to add more exercise now. I also realized that I can’t eat now on fasting days – even the 500 calories because it seems to trigger eating frenzies in me. If I don’t eat at all and just drink plenty of water and unsweetened tea I don’t get those cravings. I have rationalized this slowdown over the last year as my body trying to normalize itself. I know at one time I was at this weight for years and didn’t really gain or lose it so I thought – well, I must be at a “body set point” where it is comfortable and if I just stick with it – eventually it will start to fall again. I need to lose about another 50 pounds, and I would sure like that weight loss pace I had when I started!! I’d be DONE by now and into maintenance. I am thinking I have to step it up and do a very strict “Fast Beach diet” style thing for a couple of months. Like 5 days of strict 1200 calories – no grains, low glycemic foods and 2 all day fasts a week for like a month and see what happens. And the reason I LOVED this diet was because I didn’t have to count calories or be very strict on eating days.
So – I’d love to see some more people weigh in on this topic too.

Hi May:

As you have said, your TDEE (metabolism) goes down or slows as you lose weight. Plateaus come and go, but long ones (over a month) usually result from not having a large enough calorie deficit to cause weight loss. People that do long term water fasts consistently lose weight with no plateaus longer than a day or two, which seems to indicate that if the calorie deficit exists weight loss will occur and continue without serious pause. This has been proven time after time on many different types of diets – as long as a person eats under their TDEE, they lose weight. By definition, they have to!

The set point theory is bantered about but has not been proven. I’ve never seen it ‘work’. It seems not to exist on the ‘downside’ – whatever the ‘set point’ weight is for a person, it seems that if a person goes above it the body does not automatically lose weight to get back down to it. So not much of a ‘set point’ there. I guess it is only supposed to work if you fall below it.

One of the hardest things for an overweight person used to eating quite a bit of food to understand is how little food the body needs to maintain its weight. And once a person has lost a lot of weight while still having more to lose, they sometimes have to decide whether enough is enough. Do they really want to keep going, with all that means, or will they be satisfied with their new, much lower weight. That is a very personal decision.

By being on a ‘plateau’ for as long as you have, you know how much food you can eat and maintain your weight loss and even gain a little. That is a fact you must deal with. It is up to you whether you want to maintain, go up or go down from where you are. If you want to go down, you can eat less doing 5:2, or doing any one of hundreds of other diets out on the market. Only you know what is best for you.

Good Luck!

I wanted to add that I measured myself today – I usually do it about once a quarter to get a reality check and I’ve lost an inch on my waist and 1/2 inch off my hips since the last measurement I took in November. So SOMETHING is moving still in the right direction. I modified my fasting day to go to no food at all. Much easier to do that than try to figure out how many calories I need right now and I’ve dropped about 2 pounds. I’m also watching my eating days more closely. Good luck with your vigilance!!

MaybelleW, Dr Jason Fung outlines exactly the problem you’ve been talking about. There is indeed research about set points and for the likes of us it’s a little depressing. I’m only a year or so below you and this is the third time I’ve remained for any length of time on a serious diet to reduce from the overweight/obese borderline BMI of 29. Like Austrian, this time I’ve been really reading round the subject. This time I’m losing weight a lot more slowly than when I dieted previously. Fung points to research that shows that when you have lost weight, you must eat less to maintain the weight you reach than someone of the same weight who has never dieted. Also, the hormones for hunger (grehlin in particular) are higher than for a never dieter even a year or more after one has stopped dieting, and Leptin plus other satiety hormones are lower in ex dieters. Hence the always hungry feeling. Keeping saturated fat and good oil levels fairly high with moderate amounts of protein foods can apparently help but to do that without putting on weight the pure carbs such as bread, pasta etc., must be kept low. Do you like oily fish, such as mackerel and herring? Lamb that’s not fat trimmed? As these with green and multi coloured veg really help. And keeping nuts and seeds in your non fast day daily food. Maybe step up eggs? Very hunger quelling. At the moment I seem to get some benefit from eating my breakfast as late as possible, waiting till I’m really hungry. Yesterday I had coffee at about 1130 then wasn’t hungry til 1.30, ended up eating at 2. It’s not always as late as that, but extending the natural overnight fast like that does seem to help a bit. Or if I’m hungry first thing I have something like a boiled egg or two, or yogurt with oatbran and raspberries then go and have a bath or shower. By the time I’ve finished, I don’t feel hungry so don’t overeat the way I did with toast. Hope this helps ( and me too when I get to maintenance).
I’m still losing, but I know already it’s going to be hard to maintain the weight I get to.

Apricot, I appreciated your post a lot – good ideas from you as a fellow IFer from the awful 29/30 BMI borderland.
I am a bit uneasy about mentioning the difficulties of maintaining weightloss at other threads – I really don’t want to rain on anybody’s parade, and it is so important to keep motivation up. So it is a real relief to have the problem discussed openly in this thread.

Maybelle, Debra from justmaintaining calls maintaining her second part-time job – so maybe it helps if you think of it as something that requires constant attention and vigilance. Yeah, I know, doing two fast days and not caring a lot about the non-fast days sounds like more fun…*sigh
I am rooting for you!

Hi Maybelle
When you go on your fasts do you weigh yourself before the fast and directly after it so you can measure how much weight you have lost over the 36 hours? I am just interested to know if you are still losing the same amount during your fast time?
I find maintenance is a very interesting topic with little real information available on how people manage. Thank you for starting this post.

Hi May and Q:

May – Most people take a break from their diet when they travel. That means they eat and drink more than they have been. And usually what they eat and drink more of are carbs and alcohol. These cause immediate water weight gains that can be lost quite quickly if the person returns to their diet after their travels. The problem is that science now knows processed carbs like wheat and sugar are addictive. Just like any addictive substance, once you start eating them, they creep back into your diet almost unnoticed and you start gaining weight. This is very noticeable with people that do the old Atkins diet. They all report nice weight losses, but the minute they end the diet and begin again to eat carbs, they gain the weight back. With 5:2 this happens more slowly because of the calorie restriction caused by the two diet days each week. But if you don’t watch what you are eating, you will slowly begin eating more and more carbs and the weight will creep back on.

Q – This post will give you the ‘numbers’ on fasting: https://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/tdee-for-the-curious-or-why-dont-i-lose-weight-faster/. If you read it, you will see a woman might expect to lose only 5 or 6 ounces of fat after a diet day. Weighing before and after really will prove little because water weight and food in transit weight overwhelm the fat weight loss number. For instance, if you think about it you eat and drink several pounds of food and liquid every day. On a diet day, you cut that number substantially. So you might weigh less the day after, but you soon regain it when you start eating again. In any event, the number, whatever it is, is pretty much meaningless for determining how much fat weight you lost.

Good Luck!

Has anyone struggling considered doing a 4:3 diet? I’m fasting (generally) on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Not only does this mean I have 3 days at only 468 calories, it means there are only 4 days where I can overdo it and mess up!

MaybelleW, I too give up trying to fast when I travel, but I have started taking some food with me, particularly some lower carb higher nut and fibre patties or little cakes I make that stop me filling up too often on bready things like rolls or baguettes. Hard boiled eggs are good too.

Two tricks for travel from previous diets: pastry-less mini quiches made in patty pans or muffin trays. And oatbran bread or cake, very sustaining and in some forms tasty! I’ll put it in the recipes section later this evening.

I’ve been doing 4:3 because I mostly mess up, sometimes only slightly, as I get so hungry in the evening. I’m now trying to postpone feeling hungry as late in the day as possible to either have only one meal of 500 or two in a small time frame. Got to 4 pm today so far, and not very hungry yet, thanks to drinks, including cider vinegar and lemon.

I use apple cider vinegar in all my salads instead of salad dressings which can be up to 50% sugar content!! In salads it tastes fantastic. I also drink it straight off the spoon. Two table spoons before any meal will lessen your blood glucose spike after eating. If you have a big sweet tooth drinking it may be difficult though. Give it a try you never know you may like it. Also be careful of the brand you buy. They even spike apple cider vinegar with sugar!! Ive seen brands with up to 30% sugar content. You say that being a vegetarian makes it hard to cut out simple carbs? Can you give examples of some of the simple carbs you mean? Is it bread, or rice or cakes or fruit juice? If you make a real effort to cut sugar out of your diet weight loss will happen.

Must be my Italian heritage but I love vinegar, so for me its real easy to eat/drink it. The other thing that gets me “angry” is that food producers put sugar (or the 6 million variations of the same thing) into everything. health cereals with 30% sugar content. Grrrrr. My wife bought some Christmas puddings, they were getting rid of them cheap. I took a bite and had to spit it out it was that sickly sweet. Read the packet and it was 52% sugar. That is just insane. If people just watched the amount of sugar they ate it would make their task of losing weight a lot easier.

Big booty, thanks for the info on cider vinegar – I’ll give it a try, if I can make myself swallow the vinegar-y water. 🙂
As to sugar – too true, absolutely insane how much sugar is added to so many products you would imagine to be sugar-free. It’s just a cheap filler for the food industry; and it will keep food from spoiling. Good news for them, awful news for us consumers.

Maybelle, too bad about the allergies. Did your doctor tell you whether this is a common phenomenon? Must be difficult to replace, legumes are such a staple for vegetarians. What can you eat as a plant protein, then?

Oh, Hallstatt, that’s about one hour from my hometown. We sometimes went to the lake to hike there, but I haven’t been there for years now. Did you go see the skulls?

Thanks for answering my question – I can imagine that the allergists are confounded – I’m sure you must be one of the rarer cases. I think complainig a bit about it now and then is absolutely justified. 🙂

No, I haven’t tried teh apple cider vinegar drink- but my mother told me that she actually bought a book years ago about the “Miracle of Apple Cider”; she’s promised to read it and I’ll write about any interesting bits she comes across.

Hi everyone, I’ve so enjoyed learning from your posts. I’ve heard that from middle age we tend to lose about 1/2 kg of muscle mass every year, thus lowering the metabolism, and the TDEE on a regular basis. Although my exercise of choice is walking, I find weight gain or maintenance is much easier if I also use small weights or weight bearing exercises. It helps stall the TDEE drop. Just a thought…

Good morning Maybelle, interesting reading. The Biggest Loser’s diet is extreme, whereas, the 5:2 if followed accurately is less drastic. I’d like to think the five days of normal eating counters the bodies drive to drop the metabolic rate. Hopefully, researchers are studying intermittent fasters long term as well as Biggest Losers.

There is no doubt that drastic dieting causes weight gain, metabolic changes and affects the endocrine system. Personal experience tells us so. In my early 20s, a very stressful event led me to stop eating ( except for cups of tea and a slice of bread and butter!) for approximately 6 weeks. I dropped a significant amount of weight, looked fantastic, felt bleh, and remembered commenting that I couldn’t eat or drink more than a cup of cappuccino or I’d gain weight. I did and more! Thus began my experience of yo yo dieting and weight gain. At 61 I found 5:2. I began it for the health benefits. Losing weight was a bonus. Maybe my attitude to this WOE helped, but this is the only plan that is working for me. I’ve lost the few pounds I regained and have refocused. I certainly don’t feel deprived and enjoy eating a healthy diet and a regular glass or two of wine. Significantly I am not obsessing and that is a huge bonus!

Like you I read extensively. Although I haven’t read Dr Moseley’s book on the 8 week BSD aimed at diabetics, I have been browsing the BSD forum and read a four part series in the Daily Mail which outlined the BSD and included recipes. I toyed with following the plan to help me lose the extra pounds I had regained but have decided to stay with the 5:2 because it is working and highly sustainable. I worry about many people on these forums who appear to have turned the 5:2 concept into a crash diet making it less sustainable.

I have so many thoughts buzzing around but would like to end on a very positive note. My husband! My husband was an obese child. At 16 he had a medical checkup for insurance purposes. He was told to lose weight and he did. When I met him at 28 he was svelt and fit, ate no carbohydrates, felt deprived and obsessively watched his weight. On a trip to Italy he began eating pasta and lost weight! I gained on the same diet. At 70 he still has a very healthy BMI, blood pressure and cholesterol, no sign of diabetes. He walks for an hour a day, eats huge quantities of fruit, loves carbohydrates, eats modest portions, enjoys a beer and wine daily. Obviously he has found what works for him but is one of the 3% who have successfully maintained, in his case for over 50 years! It is doable, we just need to find what works for us as individuals.